2+2=22: The Alphabet (2017) - full transcript
The film documents the genesis of the recordings and production of some music pieces by the band Kreidler that were released on their album ABC in May 2014. Continuous, long, observing ...
There are
streets, paths, trails, alleys, causeways
and freeways.
Highways, esplanades, tree-lined roads
arcades and boulevards.
Side streets, main streets,
ring roads, avenues,
expressways, village roads,
play streets,
crossroads,
country roads, coast roads,
asphalt streets,
parallel streets,
one-way streets,
thoroughfares.
Bypasses, intersections, switchbacks,
gravel paths, roundabouts,
footways, forest paths, sand paths,
mazes, beaten paths, squares.
Entire networks, entire escapes.
And there are life paths, dead ends,
rough patches,
ways of grief, ways of the cross,
detours, escape routes,
paths of sacrifice, pilgrim paths,
roads into the abyss,
ways of love and trails of longing.
Journeys from A to B.
In the case of actual roads,
these journeys take place in a network
that allows for endless connections.
Viewed metaphorically,
a process is envisaged as culminating
in an inevitable or intended end.
The streets serve as a set and a theater
on which all of life's possibilities
are played out.
Their networks are the model
for stream of consciousness in literature.
Abandonment to a flow of thought,
the joy at the path of writing,
the automatic writing of the surrealists,
of the Beat poets,
writing "on the road,'
the endless possibilities of writing,
which are coupled with
infinite combinations
of landscape modules and urban particles.
This wipe effect,
the overlay and resurfacing
of parts of memory,
the extinguishing and evoking of memories,
is also a passion.
Main streets and main clauses,
dependent clauses and side streets,
paragraphs and neighborhood streets,
chapters and districts.
The geometric figure of the streets
and the syntax of sentences,
traffic signs and punctuation marks.
The urban road network
as a story from district to district,
from chapter to chapter.
The street vendor interrupts my thoughts,
or he offers the right ware
at the right time.
He profits from
that instant of concurrence,
from someone finding
what they weren't seeking.
Arrive at a period,
make a paragraph,
complete a transition.
"And then... And then... And then..
"And then...
"And then.."
Step out onto a street, walk it,
walk down it, stroll and stagger.
Living and writing on the street.
The world is inscribed
in a circular process.
The unstructured collision
of architectural intentions on roadsides.
On the streets
we become extras acting out life.
We become
the passive audience of a staging
of dealings and actions.
If the street is a stage, then it presents
the drama of the simultaneity of events,
their emergence and re-submergence.
Instead of walls
the sky closes in on you.
Cities, suburbs,
landscapes, mountains and deserts.
With them, people's sentences
about their relationships,
their travels, their crises
and their duration.
The endlessness of the streets
implacably collides with human finiteness.
Entire empires drew their power
from the transport networks
that they bred:
Roman road construction,
military driven autobahn planning,
Chinese trade with transport networks,
international standardization of roads.
Streets have
a mirror symmetry to their layouts.
Along the longitudinal axis,
both sides of the street frontage
allow views of buildings
and glimpses into developments,
or perspectives of the lines and horizons
of the surrounding landscapes.
The horizontal axis offers
outlooks and retrospective views
of the course of the road
from a frontal view.
Points in the distance evolve
into complex architectural shapes
and landscapes.
They pass by us laterally
to then shrink back together,
becoming a lingering point
in the distance.
The street is also a non-topic.
It seems a run-of-the-mill place
and, in its ubiquity,
a genre exhausted and over represented
to the point of triviality.
Streets are seen as filmed to death,
the viewpoints one can take towards them
covered from A to Z.
The uniqueness of their paths
is disregarded, as with media in general,
and the destinations they reach idealized.
Roadside buildings have it rough.
Lots on cul-de-sacs are popular.
A building represents the "bound" story.
The street represents
the "unfettered" story,
an experiment,
and, as such, possibly nothing.
Streets are containers for feelings
that one passes again later.
In contrast to buildings, they represent
the variable components of history.
As media, they are extremely fleeting.
They must constantly be improved.
From the anonymous mass of memory matter
that is not actively retrievable
places and streets suddenly stand out.
Out of nowhere, the memory of a crossroads
shifts to the center of the conscious mind
and one cannot say why.
Every thought springs from
a junction of place and time.
If one were to have lost faith
in the connection of thoughts to place,
no completely shaped image of reality
would make sense anymore.
An imagery that no longer feels bound
to places encountered in reality
is nonsense.
streets, paths, trails, alleys, causeways
and freeways.
Highways, esplanades, tree-lined roads
arcades and boulevards.
Side streets, main streets,
ring roads, avenues,
expressways, village roads,
play streets,
crossroads,
country roads, coast roads,
asphalt streets,
parallel streets,
one-way streets,
thoroughfares.
Bypasses, intersections, switchbacks,
gravel paths, roundabouts,
footways, forest paths, sand paths,
mazes, beaten paths, squares.
Entire networks, entire escapes.
And there are life paths, dead ends,
rough patches,
ways of grief, ways of the cross,
detours, escape routes,
paths of sacrifice, pilgrim paths,
roads into the abyss,
ways of love and trails of longing.
Journeys from A to B.
In the case of actual roads,
these journeys take place in a network
that allows for endless connections.
Viewed metaphorically,
a process is envisaged as culminating
in an inevitable or intended end.
The streets serve as a set and a theater
on which all of life's possibilities
are played out.
Their networks are the model
for stream of consciousness in literature.
Abandonment to a flow of thought,
the joy at the path of writing,
the automatic writing of the surrealists,
of the Beat poets,
writing "on the road,'
the endless possibilities of writing,
which are coupled with
infinite combinations
of landscape modules and urban particles.
This wipe effect,
the overlay and resurfacing
of parts of memory,
the extinguishing and evoking of memories,
is also a passion.
Main streets and main clauses,
dependent clauses and side streets,
paragraphs and neighborhood streets,
chapters and districts.
The geometric figure of the streets
and the syntax of sentences,
traffic signs and punctuation marks.
The urban road network
as a story from district to district,
from chapter to chapter.
The street vendor interrupts my thoughts,
or he offers the right ware
at the right time.
He profits from
that instant of concurrence,
from someone finding
what they weren't seeking.
Arrive at a period,
make a paragraph,
complete a transition.
"And then... And then... And then..
"And then...
"And then.."
Step out onto a street, walk it,
walk down it, stroll and stagger.
Living and writing on the street.
The world is inscribed
in a circular process.
The unstructured collision
of architectural intentions on roadsides.
On the streets
we become extras acting out life.
We become
the passive audience of a staging
of dealings and actions.
If the street is a stage, then it presents
the drama of the simultaneity of events,
their emergence and re-submergence.
Instead of walls
the sky closes in on you.
Cities, suburbs,
landscapes, mountains and deserts.
With them, people's sentences
about their relationships,
their travels, their crises
and their duration.
The endlessness of the streets
implacably collides with human finiteness.
Entire empires drew their power
from the transport networks
that they bred:
Roman road construction,
military driven autobahn planning,
Chinese trade with transport networks,
international standardization of roads.
Streets have
a mirror symmetry to their layouts.
Along the longitudinal axis,
both sides of the street frontage
allow views of buildings
and glimpses into developments,
or perspectives of the lines and horizons
of the surrounding landscapes.
The horizontal axis offers
outlooks and retrospective views
of the course of the road
from a frontal view.
Points in the distance evolve
into complex architectural shapes
and landscapes.
They pass by us laterally
to then shrink back together,
becoming a lingering point
in the distance.
The street is also a non-topic.
It seems a run-of-the-mill place
and, in its ubiquity,
a genre exhausted and over represented
to the point of triviality.
Streets are seen as filmed to death,
the viewpoints one can take towards them
covered from A to Z.
The uniqueness of their paths
is disregarded, as with media in general,
and the destinations they reach idealized.
Roadside buildings have it rough.
Lots on cul-de-sacs are popular.
A building represents the "bound" story.
The street represents
the "unfettered" story,
an experiment,
and, as such, possibly nothing.
Streets are containers for feelings
that one passes again later.
In contrast to buildings, they represent
the variable components of history.
As media, they are extremely fleeting.
They must constantly be improved.
From the anonymous mass of memory matter
that is not actively retrievable
places and streets suddenly stand out.
Out of nowhere, the memory of a crossroads
shifts to the center of the conscious mind
and one cannot say why.
Every thought springs from
a junction of place and time.
If one were to have lost faith
in the connection of thoughts to place,
no completely shaped image of reality
would make sense anymore.
An imagery that no longer feels bound
to places encountered in reality
is nonsense.